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Tubes or Valves

A vacuum tube, electron tube (in North America), or thermionic valve (elsewhere, especially in Britain) and Röhre in German (Adjective/Plural? Röhren as in Röhrenradio = Valve Radio), usually simply called “tube” or “valve”, is a device that uses wires, grids and plates to change current flowing between the heated cathode (source) and collecting Anode.

Almost all valves have a heated Cathode as an electron source and at least an Anode (Plate in USA). To control the current and have something more complicated than a Diode or Rectifier (used to turn AC mains to DC or detect radio signals) you need at least one control electrode, the grid.

What is this site?

This is my personal valve technology era site. Most of the reference material is about valves and other tube like devices. The “blogging” or “Posts” section is used for edited versions of the restoration mostly of Radio sets in my collection and valve related projects.

I’ve been interested in Valve Radio since age 11 and passed UK RAE / City & Guilds age 17. I have worked in the Electronics, Teleccom and Broadcast industries as hardware designer (Digital, RF, Analogue, PSUs), embedded Programmer, Databases, Networks etc for over 30 years.